Affirmative Action Watch

Stanford and Yale are destroying student records that would likely open them to charges of illegal racial discrimination. See this news story in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

This ought to be a very big deal. And note this: “Students for Fair Admissions, an advocacy group that has filed lawsuits challenging the race-conscious admissions policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, on Thursday sent Yale and several other Ivy League institutions letters warning that they put themselves at legal risk if they destroy such records.”

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Maryland’s medical marijuana commission will be required by statute to “seek to achieve racial, ethnic, and geographic diversity when licensing medical marijuana growers,” to encourage “applicants who qualify as a minority business enterprise,” and to “seek to achieve racial, ethnic, and geographic diversity when licensing dispensaries.”

Now, the usual justification for race-based decision-making is remedying past discrimination in a particular industry or agency, but it’s hard to see how that would apply here, since the marijuana business — at least, the legal marijuana business — is quite new in Maryland. So it must be that pot grown and dispensed by African Americans is somehow different from that grown and dispensed by white Marylanders. Who knew?

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Well, so much for sports uniting us: The Washington Postreports, “ESPN 980 began developing a morning program built around [Jason] Reid and Chris Paul . . . The idea: a local sports-talk show hosted by two white personalities and aimed at white men . . . ”

Just kidding! Of course, the show was to be hosted by “two African American personalities” and was to be “aimed at African American men.” That’s fine, whereas the former would have been illegal and racist.

My take: It is, for starters, a divisive phrase, much more likely to hurt race relations than help them, as it lumps together all white people – many of whom cannot be considered “privileged” by any reasonable standard – and points an accusatory finger at them, asserting, “You don’t deserve what you have.” It is, at bottom, just another way of complaining about stereotyping, even though all racial groups – indeed, all groups, period – face stereotyping, some negative and some positive, and there’s nothing new or remarkable about it. It overstates the extent to which stereotyping occurs and the consequences it has. And, finally, playing this particular race card suggests that racial disparities — and, indeed, racial stereotyping — are due solely to racism simpliciter, and have nothing to do with culture and, in particular, cultural dysfunctions.

It is, in other words, the “conversation on race” that we have come to expect from the left: All whites must accept blame for all disparities of any kind, and any suggestion that some nonwhites have failed to act responsibly is blaming the victim.

And what does all this have to do with the Center for Equal Opportunity? Well, those “government housing policies” were largely race-driven — that is, the feds brought pressure to bear on lenders to “get their numbers right” and make more loans to certain people because of their skin color or national origin. You can read the related testimony I gave to Congress here in the wake of the crisis.

During the podcast, you can hear me read in this part of that testimony, to get Mr. Wallison’s reaction:

By the way, if there was an uptick in subprime lending in the recent past, it may have come about because lenders were being pressured by government and quasigovernment agencies to make more loans to individuals with marginal creditworthiness. The response of the lenders might have been, “Fine, but if we have to make these loans, we will have to charge higher interest rates to make them economically feasible.” Thus, the same people who are lamenting “predatory lending” may have caused it by pushing for more loans to members of this or that racial, ethnic, or income group.

Mr. Wallison agreed. Another bad government policy, driven by race, with disastrous consequences. Here’s how I concluded my testimony:

It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that the last thing the government should do is encourage lenders to worry about anything other than creditworthiness in making loans. …. Ramping up the use of disparate-impact civil-rights enforcement, and any other kind of pressure on lenders to make sure that they get their racial and ethnic numbers right, is a bad idea. … [O]ur fair housing laws should and do make it illegal for lenders to treat people differently on the basis of race or ethnicity, and that is how they should be enforced. As a matter of law, legal policy, and economics, those laws should not be used to coerce lenders into arriving at politically correct statistical results.

Your Anti-Discrimination Hotline

In most instances, the use of preferences on the basis of race or ethnicity in education, employment, or government contracting violates federal law. This is true even in cases of "affirmative action" and "diversity" programs.

The Center for Equal Opportunity is interested in hearing about such discrimination. In many instances, we may be able to do something about it. This is especially true when the discrimination is openly stated--as is often the case, believe it or not. CEO will not serve as your attorney, but in many cases we will contact the alleged discriminator, and in other cases we may be able to help you find a lawyer.

Please reference the adjacent program types and fill the form linked to below to tell CEO about discrimination that you have witnessed.

Type A Programs

Select this if the discrimination you have witnessed is advertised or described as being open only to some racial or ethnic groups, or where it is advertised that members of certain racial or ethnic groups are preferred.

Examples:

Minority job fairs

Minority-only or nonminority-only scholarships or financial aid

Minority-only summer programs or internships

Private or government (municipal, state, or federal) contract set-asides

On-the-job training or mentoring programs open only to members of certain racial or ethnic groups.

TYPE B PROGRAMS

Select this if the discrimination you have witnessed comes about because of a desire to reach a predetermined racial or ethnic quota or goal. Describe the statement or announcement of the quota or goal, and a brief description of the discrimination that resulted from it.

TYPE C PROGRAMS

Select this if the discrimination you have witnessed involves racial preferences or quotas that you can describe but cannot be documented by a paper trail. Describe as specifically as possible the use of racial preferences or quotas that you have witnessed.